The College Tax Reform Tantrum

Higher ed howls at the modest cut in subsidies in the House bill.

Colleges have been rocked by student protests, but now they’re launching a demonstration of their own in Washington against reductions to their tax subsidies. They’re throwing a tantrum because they may, at long last, have to rationalize their spending.

The IRS code contains about a dozen individual tax subsidies for higher education, all with disparate rules that the IRS describes in a 95-page brochure that makes academic prose look lucid. Parents and students can claim three different tax credits, deduct loan interest,...